'Milestone' for child malaria vaccine

Reporting in PLOS Medicine, researchers found that for every 1,000 children who received the vaccine, an average of 800 cases of illness could be prevented.

And in continuing trials it went on to provide protection some 18 months after the injections were given.

Manufacturers GSK have now applied for regulatory approval - making this the first vaccine to reach this step. BBC News

A very exciting first step towards the cure of very nasty disease.

Further Reading:
Malaria Killed Half the People Who Have Ever Lived

Of course we can’t know for sure how many people have ever lived - we don’t have census data going back 52,000 years – but fortunately, someone has tried to guesstimate the answer to this question. Carl Haub, of the Population Reference Bureau came up with a number, despite the fact that “any such exercise can be only a highly speculative enterprise:" roughly 108 billion people have been born.

Therefore, working with Haub’s numbers, if malaria has killed half the people who ever lived, 54 billion people have died from malaria.